Special Issue Article • DOI: 10.2478/njmr-2014-0008 NJMR • 4(2) • 2014 • 73-81

TEMPORAL AND GENERATIONAL IMPACT ON IDENTITY, HOME(LAND) AND POLITICS OF BELONGING AMONG THE KURDISH DIASPORA

Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine the experiences of two generations Minoo Alinia1*, Barzoo Eliassi2 among the Kurdish diaspora in : those who migrated as adults and those who were born and/or raised in Sweden. The focus will be on issues 1Department of Sociology, University, Sweden of identity, home(land) and politics of belonging with regard to generational and temporal aspects. We will argue that there are significant differences 2International Migration Institute, among the older and younger generations with regard to their experiences that University of Oxford and Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden demand different theoretical and analytical conceptualisations.

Keywords Diaspora • generation • experience • racism • identity • homeland • belonging • Kurdish • Swedish

Received 15 May 2013; Accepted 11 February 2014

1 Introduction

Departing from two different studies (Alinia 2004; Eliassi 2013) that Kurdish refugee migration to Europe, including Sweden, mainly look at older and younger ‘generations’ of Kurdish diaspora living started in the 1980s as a consequence of a changed political situation in Sweden, this article focuses on what passage of time and rise in , and . The Kurdish diaspora can be described both of new generations mean for these two groups of migrants within as a stateless diaspora and mainly a product of political oppression the Kurdish diaspora and the diaspora in general. Our use of the and economic deprivation (Eliassi 2013). There are no official term ‘older generation’ refers to migrants who moved to Sweden as figures about the in the West since theyare adults, while the term ‘younger generation’ refers to migrants who registered as citizens of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and . Yet, the Kurdish were born and/or brought up in Sweden. These two groups make diaspora in the West is estimated to exceed one million immigrants up the first and second generations of the Kurdish diaspora in (Hassanpour & Mojab 2005). The last two decades of Kurdish history Sweden. Differences with regard to conceptions of Kurdish identity, can be distinguished as a period when the Kurdish diaspora has home(land) and belonging among these two generations of the become politically mobilised on a large scale. Kurdish transnational diaspora illustrate the situatedness of diasporas and highlight the communities and Kurdish diasporic spaces are established as an changes diaspora groups undergo with the passage of time and outcome of the intensified Kurdish migration and relationship with the emergence of new generations within the group. However, two the countries of origin and among settled in different countries factors that remain constant among the generations are the need and around the globe (Alinia 2004; Eliassi 2013; Emanuelsson 2005; quest for home(land), identity and a sense of belonging. As previous Khayati 2008; Wahlbeck 1999). During the last two decades, a whole studies about Kurdish diaspora have shown (Alinia 2004; Eliassi new generation within the Kurdish diaspora has emerged, as well as 2013; Khayati 2008; Wahlbeck 1999), nationalism has been a major new issues, conflicts and challenges, for instance, regarding gender ideological framework for construction of collective identity among the issues. While common experiences of being Kurdish and immigrants Kurdish diaspora. Nationalist discourses on homeland and belonging are shared among all generations within the diaspora, they maintain and imaginations of community can have a strong attraction for different contextual frameworks for their identification, sense of people involved in diaspora when there is a lack of identification belonging and their notions of home(land). and belonging to the country of residence because of exclusion Many studies of Kurdish diaspora have found that the Kurdish and marginalisation. Thus, although the new generation continues diaspora has contributed to the spreading and strengthening of to search for home(land), belonging and identity, differences exist Kurdish nationalism (e.g. Alinia 2004; Eliassi 2013; Emanuelsson in their conceptualisations of these terms compared with the older 2005; Hassanpour 1998; Khayati 2008; Wahlbeck 1999). However, generation of Kurdish diaspora. one question that arises is about the character of ethnic and national

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Brought to you by | Oxford University 73 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM identities that emerge in such processes in which not only ideological reality in the interviewees’ narratives have many dimensions and and political convictions but also issues of gender, class, generation, can have been direct or indirect, for example, conveyed or cognitive country of origin, and socio-economic background have shown to experiences (Essed 1991: 58). According to Widerberg (2002), have significant influence (Alinia 2004, 2014; Eliassi 2013). Even a experience is an activity of physical, verbal and mental character, simple comparison between diaspora studies can illustrate common where the researcher enters the articulation process. As Widerberg experiences across various diaspora groups as well as differences (2002) argues, there is a constructive tension between the lived within each single diaspora with regard to, for example, gender and experience and its discursive dimension, that is, how people interpret, generation (e.g. Alinia 2004: 331–336). describe and present lived experiences through various discourses As a number of scholars (Armstrong 1976; Brubaker 2005; and based on their positions in different power structures such as Cohen 1997; Radhakrishnan 1996) have also pointed out, there class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality and age. is a need to adopt a generational perspective whilst engaging with diaspora formation and its continuity but also with how its boundaries (e.g. community, family, gender) undergo erosion, maintenance or 3 Theoretical perspective reinforcement. The need for a study of the temporal and generation aspects of diaspora communities and identities is for instance The diaspora theory constitutes the wider analytical frame of this obvious in contemporary Swedish society where a new generation article that examines continuities and changes across generations within diaspora communities, born or raised in the country, are of Kurdish immigrants in Sweden. We depart from a definition of approaching adulthood. By discussing the experiences of two diaspora as a complex and intersectional social process characterised generations within the Kurdish diaspora, this article will contribute by two major elements (Alinia 2004, 2007). The first is the existential to new insights and knowledge on how the Kurdish diaspora relation to and orientation towards a home(land), a homing desire displays convergent and divergent experiences across generations. and a need for “home” and belonging that occupies a central place Two factors that contribute to conceptualisation differences are in daily lives and identities of diaspora members. Homeland is used experiences and identifications in relation to countries of origin and in both a symbolic and territorial sense. This should be understood in countries of settlement. Accordingly, this study also highlights some its context in order to avoid an essentialisation of the relation between new challenges that the rise of the new generations within diasporas identity and territory/place. Exile, exclusion and homing desire are imply for the Western liberal multicultural societies with regard to closely related and can partly explain these feelings (ibid; see also issues of democracy, citizenship and social inclusion. Koser & Lutz 1998; Brah 1996). The second characteristic of diaspora is the formation of a collective identity around collective movement related to issues of home(land), belonging and community formation. 2 Data and method Comprising specific political projects and actions aimed at constructing home and belonging, diaspora includes a particular form of identity The empirical material consists of a total of 76 taped, qualitative politics and political activism (Alinia 2004, 2007; see also Brubaker interviews. The first author interviewed 26 Kurdish-speaking men 2005; Sökefeld 2006; Werbner 2007; Yuval-Davis 2011). Although all and women from Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, settled in Göteborg diasporas share the two above-mentioned characteristics, they differ and . All respondents have come to Sweden as adults, when it comes to definitions of and relation to homeland, identity and and apart from one respondent, all have been residing in Sweden belonging, and the way they relate to them, since each diaspora is for at least 10 years. The vast majority of respondents come from located historically and socio-politically different. urban environments in their home country, and are educated, with Migration changes the relation between territory and cultural many of them holding university degrees from their home countries identity. The bonds between culture and geographic place, which or Sweden in some cases. The respondents tend to be active in otherwise are regarded as natural, are thus dissolved as an outcome different political organisations, cultural associations and institutions. of transnational migration and mobility (Castles & Miller 2009; The second author interviewed 50 young Kurdish men and women Hall 1996; Tomlinson 1999). Diasporic identities can be described from Kurdish regions in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The interviewees by some double epithets like “roots and routes” (Clifford 1997) or are made up of both youth who migrated to Sweden at a very “uprootings/regroundings” (Ahmed et al. 2003). Ethnic and national young age and youth who were born in Sweden. The interviewees identity becomes in this meaning, as Hall (1996) puts it, about using come from Stockholm, Göteborg, Uppsala, Örebro, Lund, Malmö, history, culture and language as resources in processes of identity Östersund and Kalmar. The young interviewees are made up of construction, survival and opposition in specific historical, social and university students, upper-secondary school student, high school, political situations. unemployed youth and Kurdish student association members. The Our studies, as well as a number of other studies, have found interviewees are all given fictive names in order to secure their that the Kurdish diaspora has contributed to the spreading and confidentiality (see Alinia 2004; Eliassi 2013). strengthening of Kurdish nationalism. However, “one question that We use individual narratives of the interviewees to show how arises is about the character of ethnic and national identities which individual and collective identities are formed, altered, contested, emerge in such processes. Can we call them, as Hall (1992) does, affirmed and negotiated. Narratives can be viewed as a prism through “new ethnicities”? In what sense are they new? Can the concept be which we can interpret human “lives in their social and political used for understanding the two generations’ experiences? (Alinia complexity” (Hammack 2011: 312). The concept of ‘experience’ is 2004: 332). Two closely related aspects in Hall’s concept of “new central for this article and the starting point has been the interviewees’ ethnicities” are the relation to difference and the relation to political descriptions of their experiences of living as Kurds, immigrants, power (Alinia 2004: 332). It is around these two aspects that we young and adults, women and men in Sweden and how these affect will discuss similarities and differences between younger and older their identity and their relations to both the Swedish and the Kurdish generations. Concerning the issue of difference, according to Hall it communities. Experiences that show themselves as knowledge of is the shift in meaning of difference that explains the meaning of “new

Brought to you by | Oxford University 74 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM ethnicities”. Hall explains: “There is the ‘difference’ which makes a reference and comparison when it comes to constructing and/or (re) radical and unbridgeable separation: and there is a ‘difference’ creating the homeland. While the older generation have previous which is positional, conditional and conjunctional, closer to Derrida’s lived experiences from these places, the younger generation who notion of différance …” (Hall 1992b: 255). Also, “Derrida uses the were born and/or grew up in Sweden do not have this to the same anomalous ‘a’ in his way of writing ‘difference’ - différance - as a extent. Consequently, young people who were born and/or brought marker which sets up a disturbance in our settled understanding or up in Sweden feel more attachment to Sweden and have claims on translation of the word/concept. It sets the word in motion to new social power and space in a way that the older generation does not. meanings without erasing the trace of its other meanings” (Hall These experiences impinge on these two generations’ experiences 1992a: 229). Based on her study of the older generation, Alinia of and relation to Sweden and to home(land) and their sense of (2004: 331–336) finds that such a shift does not correspond to the belonging in many ways. experiences of the older generation of the Kurdish diaspora but to It is not uncommon for respondents from the older generation the new generations when it comes to relation to identity, “home” to experience democracy for the first time in their lives in Sweden, and belonging. With respect to the older generation, we can “talk something they highly appreciate and talk about as the most positive about new dimensions and functions possessed by ethnic, as well aspect of living in Sweden. When they talk about the advantages of as national and religious categories of identity, rather than a shift, living in Sweden, this mainly refers to political freedom, democracy, even though Hall does not talk about a fundamental shift” (ibid: 333). gaining awareness of their personal and political rights as citizens Experience of the younger generation of Kurdish diaspora affirms and as members of minority groups and what these mean for their the “shift” that the concept of new ethnicity refers to. Thus, the way personal and political advancement. While the old generation can the new generation identifies does not mean any radical change or experience upward and downward mobility related to migration and break with regard to the older generation. It is rather connected to their pre-migratory experiences, the younger generation lacks to a dislocation and displacement when it comes to their sense of identity, great extent such pre-migratory lived experiences to relate to and “home” and belonging. In other words, the new generation can be compare with. Soma, a woman from the older generation, says: more situational and reflexive with regard to their sense of identity, home(land) and belonging. Women are more social and get involved in Swedish society and The other aspect of “new ethnicity”, that is, the relation to political with other cultures on the whole. In this regard, men also have power, is according to our studies shared by both generations. These problems. In their countries they have power within politics and in “new ethnicities of the margin” have no claims on political power in their private life, while here they lose all of it [...]. Then, he realises countries of settlement – in this case Sweden – and are therefore that he does not have any power, that he cannot even support described by Hall, as a “positive ethnicity” that must be decoupled his family [...] Women, on the contrary, become conscious here from nationalism, imperialism, racism and state (Alinia 2004: 332). and become stronger. She tries to improve herself and that does The concept of new ethnicities is as Hall argues, “about a recognition not make her husband so happy. He is afraid of losing her. He that we all speak from a particular place, out of a particular history, out is worried that the woman becomes conscious of her rights and of a particular experience, a particular culture ...” (Hall 1992b: 258).1 may leave him.

As it is expressed in the quotation above, gender also plays a 4 Immigrant ‘other’, citizen and Swede significant role in how the older generation experiences social mobility due to the situation in countries of origin (see Alinia 2014). Members As with many other non-Europeans and Muslim immigrants, Kurds of the younger generation rather speak about their experiences are also regarded as a culturally remote and incompatible group in of Swedish citizenship and the ways they are obstructed from the Swedish society. The narratives of our interviewees show that in exercising full citizenship rights. Formally and legally they feel they Sweden, in accordance with the relatively comprehensive research possess these rights but informally they are denied them in practice. on ethnic discrimination, everyday racism occurs in different arenas The younger generation feels more attachment and belonging to in society (for an overview see Burns et al. 2007; de los Reyes & Sweden compared with their parents who more often relate to and Wingborg 2002; Schierup & Ålund 2011; SOU 2006/79). At the same identify with places other than Sweden. For the older generation, time, migration – due to the revolutionary development of mass identification is not basically defined in relation to Sweden as it does media and communications technology – opens up possibilities for a for the younger generation, although Sweden is there as a powerful transnational existence. All these processes must be located within element. Although marginal, some nationalist oriented members a context where processes of re-territorialisation, origin and national of the older generation express understanding and acceptance of belonging have, to a great extent, become political categories that experienced exclusionary nationalist discourses and practices in constitute dividing lines, which in turn shape and influence the Sweden. While admitting discrimination, Salah a man from the older relations of majority and minority (Tomlinson 1999). generation says: This section engages with the ways relations of dominance and subordination are constructed as outcomes of structural inequality In general I know that we are counted as third-class citizens and and everyday life in Sweden. The majority of interviewees shared not even as second. This is unpleasant. [...] But we say that a an awareness of not being a Swede or accepted as one. However, stone is heavier in its own place, and I believe in that. Yes, it is their experiences of and relation to Sweden cannot be described true that my position as an immigrant has affected me and my as homogeneous nor can these complex experiences be described life. I see that I am an alien and irrespective of how much I am as simply positive or negative. Their positions as both individual respected, Swedes go first, and I think that it is also their right. citizens and immigrants can explain some of this complexity and ambivalence. Differences between the older and younger generation In contrast to the older generation, members of the younger are also related to experiences from home countries as a point of generation, even nationalists, more often express strong criticism

Brought to you by | Oxford University 75 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM and frustration about exclusionary discourses and practices in the possibility or the impossibility of attaining them. Blend, a man from Sweden as they feel more attachment and have more claim on space younger generation, refers to the way his belonging to Swedishness and belonging. It is common for members of the younger generation is rejected by mainstream society that sets up different thresholds to say “I am a Swede” while the members of the older generation to exclude people who do not fulfil the criteria like having the “right” instead say “I feel Swedish” when they want to express their strong skin colour, hair colour, eye colour and accent. Another man, from attachment to Sweden. However, despite their will and their claim to the younger generation, Alan, provides an example of structural a Swedish identity, the younger respondents also express awareness inequality within the labour market: of not being regarded as Swede. A young man, Soran, a member of the younger generation says: I remember once in 2004 when I applied for a job. One of the members of the board at the company told me that “we have a lot I feel Swedish and I am Swedish if I am allowed to say that. of you in our company”. I told him: do you mean svarta (blacks)? [...] Because people become suspicious when I say that I am He said, “yes, we have two Iranians”. I told him that he must be Swedish as though I have said something wrong. And if I say joking. I was shocked and destroyed. Racism is often lying under Swedish, they always ask “but from beginning”. What beginning? the surface. I was born here in Sweden. But they see me only as “Swedish on paper” (“papperssvensk”) and not as “Swedish Swedish” The quotes above illustrate the experiences of racism and (“svensksvensk”). exclusion and how they can impinge on respondents’ sense of belonging (Anthias 2002). Alan’s narrative also illustrates Consequently, there is a discrepancy between formal and how a diversity discourse can be used to conceal and manage informal ways of belonging to the Swedish society, constituted organisational arrangements based on white dominance through through various exclusionary practices and thresholds. For the employing a few non-white immigrants. The will to be accepted as younger generation, the Kurdish and the immigrant background a Swede and at the same time losing hope of that was also shared become an imposed foreground in determining their identity, origin by a large number of respondents from the younger generation as and belonging, which they also learn to adopt. In the new Europe, well as some respondents among older generation. For the young we have seen how the political climate has grown harsher in relation people, the homeland and transnational Kurdish communities cannot to migration on a discursive, political, structural and institutional level be a point of reference in the same way they are for their parents’ (Keskinen et al. 2009; Schierup & Ålund 2011). As non-European generation. Their relationship to their ‘homeland’ and transnational immigrants, our interviewees express negative experiences of the Kurdish communities is more ambivalent. At the same time, they are Swedish society. Each one of them has stories of discrimination and aware that they are subordinate to ethnically Swedish youth. Some exclusion, insults, belittlement and stereotype attitudes. According interviewees who migrated to Sweden at a young age talked about to the interviewees, are portrayed particularly a ‘journey’ from a more comfortable initial contact with the Swedish in relation to gender-based violence. Some of the narratives bear society as a welcoming and exciting society to a harsh reality of witness to experiences of exclusion from the Swedish society othering and ethnic exclusion as they grew up. Rezan, a woman from irrespective of how much they wish or try to become part of it. They the younger generation says: feel that they are rejected because of their origin and that it does not matter how much they try. Also, those among the interviewees (from When I came to Sweden, it was so exciting, a new country with both groups) who regard themselves as Swedish or having multiple a new language. I learned the very fast and I identities experience that they are not admitted into society and are really did not feel at the beginning that I did not belong to Swedish not fully accepted as members of the Swedish society (Alinia 2004; society. But it was during secondary school that I started feeling Eliassi 2013). and thinking about not belonging to Sweden when I received Respondents’ experiences of racism on a daily basis can be best comments from my classmates: “You bloody Turk” (“jävla turk”), described by the concept of ‘everyday racism’ (Essed 1991: 100). or “You bloody wog” (“jävla svartskalle”). By using this concept, Essed links micro-experiences of racism to the structural and ideological contexts in which they are shaped. The Ethnic slurs that target immigrants can be understood as a notion of everyday racism does not necessarily mean that people performative act of symbolic violence and a strategy of inferiorisation have conscious racist beliefs, but rather that they act in a way that that not only denigrates the immigrant at an individual level but also reinforces racist structures and ideologies. Shilan, a member of the reproduces the everyday othering of immigrants as not belonging to older generation, describes a recurrent experience of suspiciousness the Swedish society and thus turning them into objects of structural towards immigrants, something that was also referred to by other domination (Eliassi 2013). A theme that both older and younger respondents. Shilan says: generations mentioned when talking about racism and discrimination is what Essed (1991: 31) terms ‘gendered racism’. The interplay There is to some extent mistrust towards foreigners. For example between racism and sexism is especially manifested in the discourse when you go into a shop, you see that the assistants look at about honour killing in Sweden in which violence against women is you suspiciously. They are worried and think that you will pinch culturalised and ethnicised (Alinia 2011, 2013; Carbin 2010; Eduards something. This distrustfulness hurts and it disturbs me. They 2007; Eliassi 2013; Gruber 2007; Wikström 2007). do not know you and do not know what kind of person you are. The assistant’s look is like torture for me. Some old women for example do not like foreigners and show it very clearly. 5 Undesired Kurds: not integrated enough

Experiences of discrimination involve identification of and The Kurdish youth were not merely exposed to external othering awareness about different visual markers that one has or lacks and processes by the Swedish society but they were also involved in

Brought to you by | Oxford University 76 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM internal othering and hierarchisation of different Kurdish identities. of and relations to countries of origin and countries of settlement also In this regard, the younger generation divided Kurdish youth into impinge on their different perceptions with regard to Kurdish identity, two categories: integrated Kurds and newly arrived Kurdish youth homeland and belonging. Some identify strongly as Kurds while labelled as “imports”. Kurdish youth who were described as “imports” others do not define themselves in national and ethnic terms – the were assigned collective negative attributes like “sexist”, “backward”, majority of those interviewed are positioned somewhere in-between. “uncivilised” and “unintegrated”. For Ala, who is a young woman, the However, what is common to both younger and older generations is “imports” are not only aesthetically “ugly” but also represent a group their mobilisation of , language, common memories who are not able to integrate into the Swedish society: and experiences of oppression and resistance as resources to give themselves a platform from which they can meet society and create Those Kurdish guys with white shoes, country bumpkins, tight their identity, feel secure and experience their lives as meaningful jeans, disgusting perfume and ugly hairstyle. It happens that they (Alinia 2004; Eliassi 2013). Notwithstanding his aspiration to belong approach me and I just want to vomit. I tell them to go and get to Sweden where he lives his everyday life, Reza a man from the a life. [...] The imports think that the Kurds who are integrated in older generation feels that he is not welcomed or accepted. He says the Swedish society have lost their Kurdish identity. I tell them in that in Sweden you ‘are and will remain, as they say, an invandrare Kurdish that they should go and learn Swedish, and learn how (immigrant). Hence, it forces you to relate to the place you come to dress themselves and behave like normal people [...] I really from even if you don’t want to. It affects even children.’ Another man, don’t like these guys. Azad, thinks that it is better to maintain your own identity in order to maintain your self-confidence and self-respect, because you will Class, gender, (hetero)sexuality, ethnicity and age intersect in never be accepted as a Swede even if you want to. Azad, a man from the construction and subordination of this putative category, the the older generation, says: “imports”. Awareness of a racialised and stigmatised Kurdish identity in Sweden can explain the emergence of these derogatory slurs You become something strange. But even the Swedes, now we that Kurdish youth and other racialised groups use to draw social are talking about Sweden, will not accept you as a Swede and boundaries and stress their differences and similarities as well as do not respect you either. I do not mean that you don’t have to to position themselves as “Swedes” and “assimilated/integrated”. have contact with Swedes. I don’t mean that. [...] What I mean is Further, this implies distancing themselves from other “undesired” that first of all you have to have a platform to stand on, I mean, and “unintegrated” people with immigrant backgrounds who have you have to have a place, have some place where you can stand a different way of dressing, behaving and speaking Swedish (often and then [...] That is why my Kurdish/national feelings became “broken”). Although internal othering is demonstrated more by the stronger when I came to Sweden. It is not only about the Kurds. younger generation, it is not limited to them. Equally, a few respondents You see for example the Muslims, Jews, etc. [...] It is about from the older generation gave expression for such feelings. It was identifying yourself with something. expressed mostly in blaming the victims of discrimination for not being integrated enough. This internalised image of immigrants as These experiences are also shared by Dilsha, a woman from the ‘culturally deviant’ alludes to how assimilationist ideologies contribute older generation. Being a Kurd is an active strategy, an alternative to efforts of sustaining a status quo and unequal power relations identity that provides Dilsha with self-confidence and self-respect in that exist between the ethnic Swedes and the immigrant population relation to Swedish society: (Eliassi 2013). It does not matter how much I try, like, talk perfect Swedish, accept the Swedish society, do everything, but still when I am 6 To be Kurdish: a strategy of resistance and sitting in the tram, phew! – an immigrant. I see then that I am just survival an immigrant. [...] It is important to have one’s own identity. As long as you do not have your own identity, you cannot be stable Historical experiences of oppression and resistance are important and neither can you help other people and their society. [...] As repertoires for the construction of belonging and identification among long as you respect yourself you can respect other people. [...] Kurdish immigrants in Sweden. For Kurds, migration to Sweden Then you know who you are, you would never get lost. [...] The involves once again occupying a minoritised position not only majority of those who do not know themselves, do not have any as Kurds but also as gendered and racialised categories such as self-esteem, and do not have own identity and see themselves immigrants, “wogs”, Muslims and Middle Easterners. ‘To be’ a Kurd as immigrants. and to become involved in the Kurdish community in Sweden can be a strategy to actively create an alternative identity and home in The Kurdish identity becomes a location, a platform, a space, relation to the forced and stigmatised immigrant identity and exclusion one’s own room and a “home” where they can feel strong through from the mainstream society. Constructing a diasporic Kurdish belonging to a Kurdish imagined community. It is both a strategy identity is thus about nurturing a positive Kurdish identity based on of survival and an active and conscious identity project and a self-confidence and respect. This was emphasised by a number of strategy of resistance. There is however differences between the respondents from both the older and younger generations. It is also two generations with regard to their identity formation. Members of a “homecoming”, which means to belong, to feel at home, welcomed the older generation define in the first hand their Kurdish identity in and confident. However, as it is manifested in the respondents’ relation with and in opposition to the ethnic oppression experienced accounts, there are no homogeneous notions of Kurdishness, in their countries of origin. The Kurdish identity becomes for the older homeland and belonging (see Alinia 2004, 2014; Eliassi 2013). These generation a resource that they mobilise to resist the stigmatised differences are related to social divisions like class, ethnicity, gender migrant identity while for the young generation the situation is much and generation. Political and ideological convictions and experiences more complex. They do not all have their own lived experiences of

Brought to you by | Oxford University 77 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM ethnic oppression in the countries of origin but these experiences existential needs but also very much based on their ideological and have been partly extended to them through their parents, family political convictions. Yet, the imagined homeland is also experienced members, Kurdish media and political institutions, and the Kurdish in reality through trips made by the younger generation. Alinia (2004) diaspora communities. Yet, the younger generations’ own active distinguishes several different positions among the first generation of involvement in Kurdish identity politics also plays an important the Kurdish diaspora based on ideological and political beliefs and role in endorsing continuous identification with politicised Kurdish orientations: The two polarising perspectives are consisted of the identity (Eliassi 2013). Nevertheless, compared with their parents’ nationalist discourse and the counter discourse of the left, while the generation, they have more contact with the mainstream society and majority of the respondents are located in positions between these share much more space with other youth through school and various two based on lived experiences, political discourses and geopolitical leisure activities. They compete about the shared public spaces with realities. Regarding hesitations, ambivalences and uncertainties with not only youth of Swedish background but also with other youth with respect to homeland, Alinia writes: immigrant background who face the same exclusionary practices and same needs of identification and belonging. The young generation [T]here does not exist any given place that they all can refer have experiences of conflicts and contradictions not only with youth to when they are facing the question about where/what their of Swedish background but also with youth of , Persian and homeland is. Their meaning of homeland is a blend of political Turkish background, seen as representatives of the majority and the discourses and individual wishes, conceptions, longings and political power in their countries of origin in the Middle East. Karwan, experiences. Their attachments to place are multiple: Sweden, a member of the young generation, says: “I have had a difficult time Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, the place of birth, Kurdish diaspora with Arabs and Turks and I have been convicted 13 times because communities, and “”. One can say that there does of different fights that I have had with Arabs and Turks about Kurds.” not exist any given homeland which they both emotionally and Use of violence was not limited to the young men with Kurdish politically can call homeland, but at the same time there is more backgrounds but some of the young women also spoke of regular than one place, both real and imagined, that they relate to. conflicts with young people with Turkish backgrounds in Sweden. Homeland, in the sense of the places to which they are emotionally Leyla, a member of the younger generation says: attached, is inaccessible for many of them in different ways. It is also often associated with traumatic memories, danger, and risk. I have realized that no matter how much I try with them, I cannot (Alinia 2004: 219) be in accord with them. When I meet them it feels like meeting an eternal provocation. They know that you are a Kurd. They try Older generation’s narratives illustrate the continuous tension to provoke you for being Kurdish. It feels like that they want to and conflicts that they are facing in their everyday lives. They live humiliate you and you get irritated at them all the time. When I here while the “homeland” is highly present in their lives. They are went to secondary school and I was one of the few Kurds at that torn between “here” and “there”. In the past and in the memories of school. I was harassed by the Turks for three years and they the past they find consolation and meaning and acquire resources even called me a PKK-whore. These guys were older than me to survive the often harsh reality of their present everyday life as and I fought with them. They threatened me and my little sister. immigrants. Their lived experiences of homeland do not necessarily They were fascist Turks. correspond to their political notions of homeland. These ambivalences indicate the discursive dimension of experiences that was discussed However, relations with other youth are not only characterised by earlier. Furthermore, the narratives show that the articulations of competition and exclusion but also mutual understanding, friendship homeland, the relation to it and how it is expressed must be analysed and respect across national lines. These friendships across ethnic in connection with different socio-political and discursive contexts. and national boundaries apply also to the older generation. What For the younger generation, creating and imagining a homeland these narratives demonstrate are the everyday negotiations and seems to be more urgent as an existential need here and now. struggles for identity construction and location among people with However, the young people’s sometimes idealised and utopian Kurdish backgrounds in an ongoing process of constructing collective notion of the Kurdish homeland (Kurdistan) converts often to and personal identity in a context where nationalism and national disappointment when they travel to Kurdistan and spend some identification have become central. In these processes, youth show time there. With Sweden as their point of reference, they find out more vulnerability and stronger need for identification and location. about social and political problems and realise that they are despite all more Swedish than Kurdish. Moreover, they realise they are not regarded as Kurdish but as Swedish. Awa a woman, member of 7 Home(land): ‘here’ and ‘there’, now and younger generation, says: then When I travelled to Kurdistan some years ago, I felt: hell, I don’t Differences between younger and older generations are perhaps have anything here. It feels like another country. It does not mean more manifested when it comes to their perceptions of and relation that I don’t want to go back but you get confused. First, you go to home(land). Roughly it can be said that homeland for the older down there and think: I am going to live here. But as soon I was generation is something real, a physical place from which they have there, I felt that I could not live there. I cannot live there but I lived experiences and to which they have real and material bonds. cannot forget it either. For the younger generation, on the contrary, homeland is imaginary, something they ‘create’ according to their wishes and needs. For the While perceptions of homeland for the older generation are not older generation, homeland is connected to their experiences and only based on their personal experiences of migration but also to a memories from the past and means a continuation of their identities. high degree are based on their ideological perceptions and political For them, perceptions of homeland are not only based on their projects and experiences, for the younger generation it is mostly a

Brought to you by | Oxford University 78 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM consequence of their individual needs of location in an exclusionary in the borderlands between several localities. In other words, Swedish context. The ideological and political convictions and they bridge these societies with their simultaneous attachment to lived experiences from the past that impact the older generation’s them. The Kurdish diaspora’s “home” is built around the Kurdish perception of homeland are absent in younger generation’s movement, Kurdish identity and politics and in that sense it is “a accounts. The younger generation construct an idea, often an ideal home in movement” (Alinia 2004, 2007). In the case of the African notion, of a Kurdish homeland to cope with negotiations and drawing diaspora’s experiences in West, Gilroy (1993) accords such diasporic of boundaries regarding identity, belonging and space in relation conditions with the metaphor “Black Atlantic”. It is a question of a to other youth in Sweden. On the contrary, in relation to “newly “home” that is not territorial but rather refers to a fluid or impermanent arrived Kurds”, they regard themselves more or less as Swedes. place – a transnational home that transcends notions of nation and While older generation seem to be more confident departing from bounded territory. the Kurdish political realities, own experiences, identities and For the older generation of the Kurdish diaspora, identity is not existing transnational ties and identifications with homeland and the primarily constructed in opposition to the Swedish identity or Swedish Kurdish diaspora community, the younger generation shows more society, but in opposition to the dominant national identities in the vulnerability and an urgent existential need of location and belonging. countries of origin (Turkish, Arabic, and Persian). However, for the For them, homeland is about ‘here’ and now and not much about younger generation of the Kurdish diaspora, the Swedish identity ‘there’ and then as for the older generation. and Swedish society have much more significance. Interestingly, at The emergence of the Kurdistan Region in Northern Iraq has the same time, this younger generation has at times exhibited more entailed a strong transnationalisation of Kurdish diaspora, although essentialised notions of Kurdish identity, in response to exclusion and mainly limited to the Kurds of Iraq. However, even when it comes othering that they face. What is common among both generations is to the issue of returning, the younger respondents and women that the Kurdish identity in Sweden is mobilised, largely as a resource (Emanuelsson 2008) show much stronger ambivalence and even also in order to resist the otherness and stigma that the imposed immigrant much clearer unwillingness regarding the idea of living in Kurdistan. identity implies. Kurdish identity is mobilised in this sense as a point of Most of them say that they will not be able to live in Kurdistan especially difference at the same time that its boundaries are open and reflexive. when they have been there once. First generation respondents, on Yet, according to the concept of “new ethnicities”, the meaning of the contrary, more often maintain a dream of returning alive even if Kurdish identity, home(land) and belonging for the younger generation they are not sure if or when they will return. But the dream of return is more situational, ambivalent and flexible. These categories are seems to be as existential for them as the creation of a home(land) is more displaced and dislocated for them compared with their parents’ here and now for the young generation. generation. There is, however, a tendency toward a reactive and ethnicised Kurdish identity among the Kurdish diaspora due to experiences of misrecognition and political marginalisation together 8 Diaspora formations, generations, changes with the strengthening of national and ethnic identities as political and continuities categories. Thus, in line with Gilroy (2000), we also emphasise the political dimension in such identity processes that are coupled with The Kurdish diaspora is dispersed around many states in Western relations of power and dominance, oppression and resistance. On the countries and there are strong indications that transnational Kurdish other hand, the political, cultural and economic situation of the Kurdish identities will emerge with convergent and divergent experiences due diaspora in Sweden will impinge highly on the political processes to different political arrangements that they are embedded within. in Sweden with regard to migration and mobilisation processes of The political development and dynamics of the countries of origin Kurdish identity politics and its search for an alternative home(land). and settlement impinge on the narratives of belonging, continuity, transformation and weakening of the Kurdish diaspora. As Schierup et Minoo Alinia is associate professor of Sociology at the Department al. (2006: 247) point out, radicalised minority cultures, networks and of Sociology, Uppsala University. She holds a Ph.D in sociology and community building must be seen as a product of society’s ongoing her dissertation on Kurdish diaspora was the first major work on general transformation related to exclusion, discrimination and diaspora in Sweden. She has published a number of articles and book everyday racism directed at these groups, rather than as an expression chapters on diaspora theory, diasporic identities and mobilizations, of imported immigrant culture. Nationalism and the imagination of everyday racism, gender and migration. She is the author of Honor a national community constitute one of the powerful ideologies that and violence against women in (Palgrave Macmilan appeal to exiles and diasporas, and it is also the one that has the most 2013) which is an intersectional critical study of violence in the name favourable conditions for spreading in these surroundings. of honor. She has also published on the way gender, sexuality and Kurdistan more often referred to as homeland is very central issues of gender equality have been used in racializing discourses in respondents’ narratives, especially the younger generations’. on migrants and Muslims in Sweden. Email: [email protected] However, what is most striking is that while homeland is very central for them there does not exist any given homeland. The homeland Barzoo Eliassi has a PhD in social work and social policy. He is a is thus a vague, ambiguous and ambivalent conception. It is mostly researcher at International Migration Institute, Oxford University. He about a subjective feeling and individual and political constructions is the author of Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden: Quest for based on lived experiences, collective memory and history and Belonging Among Middle Eastern Youth (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). political discourses. Consequently, the Kurdish diasporic community His latest publication includes Orientalist Social Work: Cultural and movement, built around various politics of location, become Otherization of Muslim Immigrants in Sweden (Journal of Critical the diasporic “home” where they can find a sense of continuity and Social Work). He has published on social policy, multiculturalism, belonging. This “home” is a space that exceeds several territorial statelessness, homeland, ethnic inequality and politics of belonging borders and several nation-states. The respondents always have among Kurds and immigrants in Sweden. E-mail: barzooeliassi@ one foot in Sweden and one somewhere else. They find themselves gmail.com

Brought to you by | Oxford University 79 Authenticated Download Date | 5/29/15 5:09 PM Notes

1. Another related concept, based on study of younger generations of diasporas, is “nationalism within quotation marks” (Sernhede 1998), a kind of nationalism that is outside the national and ethnic imaginations.

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